


And Upon the Morn

by DestielsDestiny



Series: Fires of the Soul [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e20 Beside Still Water, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Alec, Hurt/Comfort, Jace Wayland Deserves Nice Things, Jace Wayland Feels, M/M, POV Alec, POV Magnus Bane, Pain, Pancakes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Magnus Bane, Sad Magnus, Stress Baking, Supportive Magnus Bane, Sweet Jace Wayland, hurt jace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 21:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11837310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: Alexander Lightwood is feeling rather scared. His parabatai is in agony, and he doesn’t know how he can help, anymore than he knows why he isn’t able to share in Jace’s pain. Something is terribly wrong. Probably a massive understatement that. But Jace is alive, and Magnus is here, so somehow, Alec still knows things will be okay.





	And Upon the Morn

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a filler/fluff piece, interspersed liberally with hurt Jace. Plot will show up next time.

Alec does not stress bake. Breakfast had not precisely been a thing of chief importance when they were growing up, to their parents or him and Izzy, before they became older siblings. 

That started to change with the arrival of Max in their lives, for all the baby rapidly growing into a toddler spent far more time in Idris with their grandparents than he ever did at the Institute. They usually managed cereal or toast most days, after Max showed up. 

But it was Jace that truly changed things. Jace, with his bizarre knowledge of something the mundanes called “commercial jingles” and his apparent obsession with introducing his newly acquired siblings to the wonders of “the most important meal of the day.” 

He hadn’t met with much success initially, but once he discovered a stool to reach the stove and a cache of pancake recipes, the Lightwood siblings were promptly hooked. And none of them had really looked back since. 

Hence Alec’s presence in the loft’s kitchen at barely gone five in the morning, the birds not yet chirping, nary a cat stirring, a dozen and one bags of flower and baking powder and bowls of frozen fruit and half-stirred batter crowding every available surface. 

Because Alec does not stress bake. But Jace does. And if they all survive what’s left of this truly horrible night, Jace is going to want a proper breakfast. If he ever wakes up. 

Alec pushes away the thought and whirls to snatch the egg carton from the counter, promptly knocking over two bowls of batter and a pot of blueberries in the process. “Damn it!” 

Alec has barely reached for a cloth to clean up the mess when it promptly vanishes in a whirl of blue flame. His shoulders slump tiredly. 

“Darling,” only Magnus Bane could look that handsome and suave, complete with rumpled robe and stained sleep pants, after the night they-Alec glances at the clock and groans-are still apparently having, “are we about to be invaded...,” Magnus examines one of the bowls with a careful head tilt,”…By an army of hungry grade-schoolers?” Right, that was the chocolate chip bowl. Max’s favourite. Jace liked blueberries best, and those had been the last of them. 

Alec felt tears prick his eyes strongly enough that he was forced to turn his head away, his jaw clenching against a sob. Ringed fingers tip his chin up a moment later, and Alec finally lets the tears flow, his head dropping onto Magnus’ rumpled robe. 

“I can’t feel him Magnus. I can hear him screaming, but I can’t feel him.” 

Magnus stroked a hand through Alec’s hair, his own voice a hoarse whisper, both their ears pricked anxiously for the sound of Jace’s renewed whimpers, “I know darling. I know.” 

Standing there, surrounded by bowls upon bowls of half-made breakfast foods, the newly reunited couple held onto each other, and waited for the morning to come. 

Behind Alec’s head, Magnus silently magicked up a dozen more bowls of blueberries. Jonathan might be hungry after all, when he woke up. 

00

Getting Jace up the stairs had been an interesting exercise in painful frustration. 

Between Jace’s flinching agony, Alec’s quiet desperation, and Magnus’ growing frown, there really was no other word for it. Eventually however, they made it into the buildings elevator, plus Jace and minus leaves. 

Only for the elevator car to start moving of its own accord. Alec glanced at Magnus carefully, almost hopefully, “Are you…?” Magnus was saved from responding why Jace groaning and dropping his head onto Magnus’ shoulder, his jaw clenched and his eyes deliberately squeezed shut. 

Living with Jace had given Magnus a spectacular masterclass on what the boy looked like scared out of his mind, which was the only reason he was able to read the pinched expression on Jace’s face as resigned terror. 

Magnus was confused and tired and Jace was heavy and the damn carpet was trying to lift off the elevator floor around their feet, so he feels he can be forgiven a certain degree of frustration. 

Still, tilting his chin imperiously at his boyfriend with a, “Come here Alexander,” might have been a tad high handed, even for the High Warlock of Brooklyn. 

It certainly failed to inspire calm in Jace, who was as rigid as a board in Magnus’ arms by the time Alec shuffled close enough to pull off his next move. Shifting Jace half to Alec’s arms without causing the parabatai to scream in agony was surprisingly the easy bit. 

Freeing his arms enough without dropping Jace completely was infinitely harder, and Magnus left off much of his characteristic flourish as he slammed his hands towards the floor, his magic rocketing the elevator up to the correct floor at a truly alarming pace. 

But when the doors dinged open, Jace was relaxed and grinning, giddy with the speed, and Alec reached across his parabatai to peck a kiss against Magnus’ lips, earning them both a swat from their cargo. 

The swat missed by a mile, Jace’s grin tinged with agony, but not so much as a breeze stirred as they crossed the hallway and finally let themselves into the loft, so Magnus counts it all as a win. 

00

Magnus threw up every ward he could think of the moment they have gently deposited Jace onto their bed. And it was their bed, because judging by the vice grip the parabatai have on each other, Magnus and his boyfriend have just acquired a semi-permanent third wheel in their relationship. 

And as much as he would have preferred a kitten to a shadowhunter, Magnus finds he can’t muster up a single iota of begrudgement towards this development. 

Jace had died, an entire realm away. Because whatever else happened at that lake, that much is certain. Alec felt it. And bizarrely, in a way that will definitely warrant more investigation later, so had Magnus. 

Throwing up his wards did offer one further clue to what the hell was going on with Alec’s parabatai. 

Because something in his wards stopped everything. The wind, the leaves, the wisps of smoke. It all just ceased abruptly, as if it had never happened at all. 

Unfortunately, they only have between putting Jace down and Magnus slowly ambling into the living room to retrieve some much needed booze for that everything bit to have to be rethought, thanks to Jace’s scream piercing through the loft. 

The wards stopped everything but the pain it seemed. 

Which is how Magnus ended up spending most of the next several hours alternating between serving as a pillow for a fitfully napping Alexander, jerking awake along with his boyfriend everytime Jace so much as twitched, and casting every cooling spell he could think of around the bed, because when the agony receded, the fever resurged with a vengeance. 

They don’t figure out one of the keys to their continued sanity until gone three in the morning, when Magnus reaches the edge of exhaustion where his magic starts to get just a little erratic, his latest cooling spell soaking through his clothes as well as washing over Jace. 

Magnus is walking through the master bathroom, toweling off his hair with one hand, casually dawning a robe over his bare chest with the other when Alexander’s cry pierces the momentary peace, “Magnus, Jace is having a seizure!”

Magnus rolled his eyes even as he bolted through the doorway into the bedroom beyond. Seriously, a kitten would be a lot less work. 

Jace isn’t having a seizure precisely, rather his body appears to have gone completely rigid with agony. Magnus, who has watched Jace walk around on a broken leg without blinking an eye, isn’t sure that is much preferable to a seizure. 

He’s gathering his magic into his fingers, striding towards the bed, when Jace abruptly collapses, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Alec pitches forward on the bed with his parabatai at the sudden loss of rigidity. Magnus blinks, then takes a tentative step closer. 

Jace actually sighs, rolling slightly towards Magnus. Alec looks at his parabatai, then at his boyfriend, who is in the process of placing a tentative hand on Jace’s forehead. 

The boy nuzzles into it. Alec lists in his direction as well, a contended smile flitting across his face. “I felt that!” 

Magnus gazed down at Jace’s serene countenance. Apparently limpet would be more accurate than wheel. Wonderful. 

00

Their pain relief method is far from perfect. It appears to only work intermittently, abruptly shutting off without rhyme or reason. 

Despite being sandwiched between them on the bed, Jace wakes them up by abruptly throwing up all over the bed and himself, but apparently taking pains to avoid either Alec or Magnus in the process.

He looks so pathetic, hunched over with hair plastered along his forehead, his neck rigid with pain. Magnus feels his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. “M’ sorry Guys. I’ll clean it up, don’t worry.” And then he actually appears to be intending to get up and do just that. 

Magnus is seriously considering resurrecting Valentine, merely to have the pleasure of killing him again, much more slowly. 

Fortunately for all concerned, Alec speaks better Jace than Magnus does. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Jace. I’ve been cleaning up after you for years remember. It’s no big deal.” Which gets Alec a weak grin, so yay for passive aggressive sarcasm. 

00

They rather give up on sleep after cleaning everything up, mostly because Jace insists on remaining sitting up, even as he slowly lists by incriminates into Magnus’ shoulder. 

He’s burning like a hot coal against Magnus’ skin when the nightmares start. And with them, the talking.

The ones where he calls out for Alec are heartbreaking, but easy enough sooth. 

The one he has when Magnus attempts to leave the bed is unexpected, but Jace’s desperate grasps for “Mag-nus” are mostly problematic because they remind Magnus enough to Madzie that resurrecting Valentine is looking more and more likely by the desperate hand grab. 

But it is the times he calls for his father than really, finally shatter them. There really is only so many times Magnus can listen to this boy mumble and sob, “I’m sorry father, so sorry,” before he is in danger of completely loosing it. 

The bed posts start smoking blue around the third, “Father please don’t!” 

Magnus has to listen to his name being called at least a dozen times while he prepares a sleeping draft strong enough to knock out a brontosaurus, and he returns to the bedroom to find Alec crying silently into Jace’s hair, the boy’s cries devolved into pathetic whimpers of, “Mg-nus”, the look of sheer relief on Alexander’s face when he sees Magnus almost makes it all worth it. 

Magnus slides a hand carefully along Jace’s jaw, soothing his mouth open and gently coaxing him to swallow, “It’s alright Jace, I’m right here. Drink this, it will make you feel better.” He doesn’t promise, and Jace’s eyes watch him the entire time he is drinking the mixture. 

But he swallows until his eyes finally, finally begin to droop, and his breathing evens out into the first thing approaching normal they’ve seen all night. 

Alec collapses against Magnus with a muted cry, “Well that was fun.” And totally inappropriate or not, Magnus ends up clutching his sides, laughing into Alec’s stomach. 

00

Jace padding into the kitchen breaks Magnus and Alec’s brief moment of quiet, but the spark in his eyes makes it impossible to begrudge him the interruption. 

Face flushed, hair sweaty, steps dragging, Jace looks awful. But he is also mobile, so baby steps. 

He sniffs the air experimentally, “Tell me you’re not trying to make pancakes Alec?” He has the audacity to groan loudly. Alexander looks indignant. “I can cook!” 

Jace shuffled around the bowls, a grin flitting over his face. “Cook yes, but pancakes aren’t mere cooking Alec.” He found the blueberries with a delighted cry, popping a few into his mouth and chewing obnoxiously. “It’s an art!” 

Which is how Magnus finds himself sitting on the floor of his kitchen at 6am, leaning against his sleepy boyfriend and watching a shadowhunter who is doubtless sporting a spectacularly high fever and has somehow fought off the effects of enough sedative potion to knock out an elephant for a week whirl around making dozens upon dozens of gourmet looking pancakes.  
Magnus blinks awake abruptly to find Jace kneeling on the floor before him, several plates balanced precariously on his outstretched arms. “Magnus? Do these look alright to you?” 

Magnus gazed dumbly at the plates of breakfast foods. Some of them appeared to have chocolate flowers arranged on top. Against his shoulder, Alec mumbled “Well done Jace, it looks delicious.”

Jace grinned happily at his parabatai, before turning his hopeful smile back on Magnus. “Mag-nus?”

And damnit if his fever hadn’t risen again. Whatever this is, and Magnus doesn’t have the foggiest, he knows it isn’t going to be an easy fix. 

He looks at the plates for a moment longer, and then smiles a soft, tender smile at Jace, “It all looks perfect Jonathan.” 

The smile he receives in return breaks his heart, but in that moment the wall clock chimes 7am, and Magnus breathes out a sigh of relief. 

They are far from out of the woods yet, Jace needs another ice bath or three, and he has enough breakfast to last him until next year, but they’ve officially made it through the night all in one piece. 

A couple of the plates fly upwards of their own accord as Clary’s voice filters through the apartment door, “Magnus, Alec? Are you home?”

Outside the kitchen window, a swirl of leaves blows by in a determined fashion.

Magnus groans and thuds his head against the cupboard behind him. 

Mornings are rather overrated he finds.


End file.
